An Audi zigzagging all over the back of a Mercedes at the front of the field with little more than an hour to go certainly made for great TV. But even my limited maths had allowed me to work out that this was a phoney battle.

I knew the Mercedes wasn't going to win the Spa 24 Hours last weekend and had been confident - almost little too confident, as it turned out - of that fact for the better part of four hours. And I wasn't very happy about it.

The growing tide of sporting restrictions in the Endurance Cup rounds of the Blancpain GT Series rendered the Auto Sport Promotion Mercedes team impotent in the final stages of last weekend's Belgian classic. These limitations on tactical freedom left it unable to respond to the challenge from the Sainteloc Audi team in any way at all.

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 29th as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 70 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Autoweek, Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.

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